The focus now isn’t on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. It’s on the judge, the attorneys, and the jurors. Get Metro Headlines in your inboxThe 10 top local news stories from metro Boston and around New England delivered daily. Defense attorneys will also argue that trial Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. erroneously withheld evidence from jurors that Tsarnaev’s older brother and accomplice, Tamerlan, had brutally killed three people two years earlier — a point that could have bolstered their argument that Tamerlan was the mastermind of the bombing and, had he lived to be tried, the only one deserving of a death sentence. For the first time since the younger Tsarnaev was found hiding in a boat after a four-day manhunt in 2013, legal analysts said, the trend line in the case is leaning in his favor — a pattern that could force the trauma of a trial once again.
“There were very big risks in keeping the case in Boston — that’s why you have this extraordinary set of circumstances,” said George Kendall, a New York-based lawyer who specializes in death penalty cases and followed the trial in Boston. Unanswered Questions About the Boston Marathon Bombing. Four years ago today, America was hit by a homegrown jihadist attack of the kind everybody dreaded in the dozen years since 9/11.
Two bombs detonated at the finish line of the storied Boston Marathon, inflicting hundreds of casualties and stunning the nation. The bloody manhunt that followed in the days after provided a perfect, nonstop drama for the social media age. The case officially ended with the death of one terrorist and the wounding of the other, leading to his capture and an eventual death sentence for his part in the plot. They murdered a policeman on their high-speed death ride through the Boston suburbs, bringing their kill total to four. In the years since, the public has learned a great deal about the murderous plans and motivations of the terrorists, the two Tsarnaev brothers, immigrants turned jihadists, but parts of their story remain shrouded in a mystery that may linger in perpetuity.
Boston Marathon Bombing Cover-Up: A Conversation with Michele McPhee. For nearly four years, WhoWhatWhy has written repeatedly about the Boston Marathon bombing. In dozens of investigative articles, we have shown how the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) official version of the tumultuous events of April 2013 did not make sense. Now, longtime Boston investigative journalist Michele McPhee argues persuasively in her new book, “Maximum Harm,” that the feds have been keeping important information about this tragedy from the public.
In this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast with Jeff Schechtman, McPhee fingers Tamerlan Tsarnaev as an FBI informant gone rogue. She talks about compelling evidence that the Tsarnaev brothers were not the bombmakers, and asks how Tamerlan was able to travel back and forth to Russia despite being on two government watch lists and having no apparent financial resources. She also discusses the role that the US intelligence community played in covering up the key fact that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was one of its protected “assets.”
Related. Boston Bomber Told FBI He Was Approached by Mystery ‘Men in Suits’ Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have called the FBI when they interviewed him about shadowy figures. The feds didn’t interview him about intelligence saying he might be a terrorist. BOSTON—Two years before Tamerlan Tsarnaev bombed the Boston Marathon with his younger brother Dzhokhar, he told FBI agents that four men claiming to be from the bureau wanted to speak to him. The terrorist’s bizarre claim was revealed for the first time this week when the FBI released its notes from the April 22, 2011, Tsarnaev interview in his family’s cramped Cambridge apartment.
The two-page memo begins with Tsarnaev saying an associate of his (whose name is redacted) was approached by four “young, handsome men in suits,” claiming to be FBI agents, who wanted to “talk to TAMERLAN,” according to the report. The agents interviewing Tsarnaev indicate that they do not know who the handsome men in suits are, describing them as “unidentified individuals.” Thank You! Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Immigration Records Reveal FBI Bombshell. WhoWhatWhy has discovered that the FBI secretly flagged at least one of the “Boston Marathon bombers” as a terrorist threat in his immigration records, despite publicly denying it had done so. This designation existed right up to the time the bombs went off at Boylston St. on April 15, 2013. Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s heavily redacted immigration records, known as an A-file (alien file), were released in February under the Freedom of Information Act and posted online by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
FOIA has a “frequently requested record” provision where multiple request for the same record triggers a “reading room” (posted online) treatment of the records. WhoWhatWhy was one of those requesters. For context, it’s important to note that soon after the bombing, uncomfortable questions were raised by WhoWhatWhy when it became clear the FBI had long been aware of Tsarnaev. Reeled in by CARRP? There’s also a good possibility that the FBI wasn’t worried about him at all. Not so. Book Review: And Nobody Died in Boston Either (2016) « Memory Hole. State-sponsored terrorism with Hollywood special effects (9/10)Edited by James Fetzer, PhD, and Mike PaleckReviewed by Brian R. Wright [Note: The Coffee Coaster is proud to publish this review on April 15, 2016—241 years after the British were ordered to march on Lexington and Concord, Mass., thus leading to, on April 19th, the first colonial armed resistance that produced British casualties: the ‘shot heard ’round the world’ and the beginning of American Independence.
[And, ironically, the third anniversary of a major hoax-assault produced, in Boston, by an out-of-control, clandestine, federalized oligarchy for purposes of destroying all vestiges of individual liberty in our country.] The good news is this book, unlike the notorious Nobody Died at Sandy Hook (2015), was not ‘banned'[1] by Amazon. The federal Boston bombing drill 4/15/13 is more a collage of imagery than the Sandy Hook event, which happened [five months] earlier, 12/14/12. To cite one example under ‘The pursuit:’ 2. 6. 9. Gary Indiana reviews ‘The Brothers’ by Masha Gessen · LRB 10 September 2015. On 24 June, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger of two Chechen-American brothers responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing on 15 April 2013, was sentenced to death in a Boston federal court. (His older brother, Tamerlan, died following a street battle with police in Watertown, Massachusetts several nights after the bombing.) The brothers had placed, and detonated by remote control, two explosive devices fashioned from pressure cookers stuffed with shrapnel; three people were killed in the blasts, and more than 260 others suffered serious, permanent injuries, including 16 who lost limbs.
Footage from multiple surveillance cameras overlooking the Boston Marathon dispelled any reasonable doubt that the Tsarnaev brothers had planted the bombs and set them off. At Tsarnaev’s trial, notwithstanding his ‘not guilty’ plea on thirty separate capital charges, his chief defence attorney told the court: ‘It was him.’ The Tsarnaevs weren’t always fleeing incipient war zones.
Why did they do it? FBI’s brazen terrorism lie: What the Boston Marathon bombing trial reveals about America’s deluded terror narrative. Close to the end of the March 25 testimony in the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial for his role in the April 25, 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the government submitted a series of exhibits with chats from the defendant.
One described wanting President Obama to win the Presidential election as the “lesser of two evils” but asserting “killing Muslims is the only promise [Obama or Mitt Romney] will fulfill.” One joked about sex even while discussing studying the Quran. Another described transferring from UMass Dartmouth (in reality, Dzhokhar was already failing out), joking about transferring to an Ivy League school, but ending by saying “I wanna bring justice for my people.” These were chats with no context, simply read by an FBI agent, without even any guidance about with whom Dzhokhar was chatting. Twice, the prosecution got caught in efforts to cherry pick too narrowly. On March 10, a different FBI Agent, Stephen Kimball, read and interpreted Dzhokhar’s tweets.
The DOJ Inspector General's Report on the Boston Marathon Jihadi Raid. Tsarnaev Brothers Go From Calm To Panicked In 2 Seconds. BOSTON -- Inside a gas station mini-market, a lanky young man grabs canned drinks from a fridge and a few bags of snack food. Curly hair pokes out from under the shopper's hooded sweatshirt as he strolls the aisles stroking his chin. This calm customer is 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, shown in video footage from shortly after he and his brother Tamerlan allegedly killed MIT Police Officer Sean Collier on April 18, 2013, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Though it would be nearly another day before police netted Dzhokhar, this video marks the beginning of the end of the Tsarnaev brothers' violent spree that gripped greater Boston along with the rest of the country. Compiled from security cameras, the images are part of two recordings that were presented to jurors in federal court on Thursday, as part of the prosecution's case against Dzokhar Tsarnaev. He has pleaded not guilty to 30 charges stemming from the double bombing of the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded 264.
Dark Questions About a Deadly FBI Interrogation in Orlando. CounterPunch Exclusive Investigation: Did the FBI Snuff Out a Boston Marathon Bombing Witness? Ibrahim Todashev, 27, a Russian immigrant friend of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was shot and killed last May 22 in the middle of the night by the FBI at the violent end of a five-hour interrogation in his home in Orlando. Now the FBI, ten months later, is claiming that its agent was attacked by Todashev, and was justified in killing him. But a CounterPunch investigation raises grave questions about what happened in that apartment. While it’s of course conceivable that this was just a hugely botched investigation by two inept FBI agents, our investigation suggests that Todashev may have been killed trying to flee a brutal interrogation, and that he may have even been deliberately executed by the FBI.
All of those leaked stories foundered on common sense. A 10-Month “Investigation” An Open Homicide Case He added, “It just makes everyone suspicious.” Follow the Blood. FBI shooting after Boston bombing was justified, investigator says. Ibragim Todashev knew the alleged Boston Marathon bombings mastermindHe was killed in Florida in May 2013 while being questioned about a triple homicide Todashev's family has disputed that he posed any threat to law enforcement (CNN) -- The shooting death of Ibragim Todashev, an associate of the alleged mastermind of the Boston Marathon bombing who was killed in a scuffle with FBI agents, was justified, Florida's Ninth Circuit State Attorney Jeffrey L. Ashton said in an investigative report Tuesday. As expected, the report concluded that there was no wrongdoing in the shooting of Todashev and that "the actions of the Special Agent of the FBI were justified in self-defense and in defense of another.
" The finding, reported by CNN last week, concurs with an FBI internal review of the shooting, which supported the agent's account. It also matches what the Florida state attorney for Orange and Osceola counties found in his investigation. "We, in particular, were only looking in fairness to Mr. Russia Warned FBI About Boston Marathon Bomb Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Report Finds. WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) - Russian authorities warned the FBI in 2011 about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two Chechen brothers accused of carrying out last year's Boston Marathon bombings, but U.S. authorities missed chances to detain him, NBC News reported on Tuesday.
Citing a congressional report it said could be released by the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee as soon as Thursday, NBC News said the Russian intelligence agency FSB cabled the FBI about its concerns in March 2011, warning that Tsarnaev was known to have associated with militant Islamists. The network said the FBI opened an investigation of Tsarnaev that month conducted by a joint task force of federal, state and local authorities. Tsarnaev was interviewed in person, and a memo was sent to the Customs and Border Protection database called TECS that would trigger an alert whenever he left or re-entered the United States.
Marathon Bombing Suspect's Friend Threatened FBI Agent With Long Pole: Report. Muslim Rights Group: Ashurmamad Miraliev Denied Attorney by FBI. FBI Says the FBI Wasn’t Surveilling the Tsarnaevs. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Dead Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect, Reportedly Tied To 2011 Killings. BOSTON (AP) — Slain Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was named as a participant in an earlier triple homicide by a man who was subsequently shot to death while being questioned by authorities, according to a filing made by federal prosecutors in the case against his brother, surviving bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. According to the filing made Monday, Ibragim Todashev told investigators Tamerlan Tsarnaev participated in a triple slaying in Waltham on Sept. 11, 2011. In that case, three men were found in an apartment with their necks slit and their bodies reportedly covered with marijuana.
One of the victims was a boxer and friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Todashev, a 27-year-old mixed martial arts fighter, was fatally shot at his Orlando home during a meeting with an FBI agent and two Massachusetts state troopers in May, authorities said. He had turned violent while being question, according to authorities.
A phone message left for a spokeswoman for the U.S. The Unexplained FBI Assassination of Ibragim Todashev | Exclusive Interview with Wife Reni Manukya. Abby Martin conducts an exclusive interview with Reni Manukya, wife of Ibragim Todashev, the Florida resident who was killed by federal agents alleging a connection between him and the Boston Bombings. They discuss what motives the government had for raiding Todashev’s home and ultimately taking his life, as well as the secrecy surrounding the case after the event.
LIKE Breaking the Set @ FOLLOW Abby Martin @ 3Share 11Share abby martin, boston bombing, breaking the set, Cover Up, Execution, extrajudicial assassination, FBI, ibragim todashev, Terrorism, tsarneav. Report: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Left Really Nice Thank-You Note To Boat Owner. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Rushes Out Of Summer Class To Make Court Hearing. BOSTON—After hurriedly gathering papers from his desk and giving a quick nod to his professor, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev rushed out of his summer engineering class at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth this morning to make his arraignment in U.S. District Court, sources reported. “Shit, I already missed two Loop buses and the next one isn’t for 15 minutes—I’m going to be so late,” the 19-year-old terror suspect told classmates on his way out, noting that because he left his UMass Pass at his dorm, he would have to rifle through his backpack for some change while running to the bus stop.
“The good news is that I’m only missing half a lecture, so as I long as I get notes from someone it should be fine. Plus, this class is pass/fail anyway.” At press time, sources were reporting that upon arriving at the courthouse, Tsarnaev apologized to the judge for his tardiness and explained that he had usually gotten rides from his brother. Officer Collier Shooting: “Rosebud” Moment of the Boston Bombing? The Contradictions Keep Coming. Maddow: ‘Something weird is going on’ in FBI shooting of Ibragim Todashev. WHO in Boston: Bombing Story Mysteries.
Official Story has Odd Wrinkles: A Pack of Questions about the Boston Bombing Backpacks. The Boston Bombings and the CIA Connection. Graham Fuller and Uncle Ruslan Tsarnaev. Boston's Blueprint for Martial Law. Florida man with connection to Tsarnaev killed by FBI. Muslims Outraged After Boston Bomber Buried In Confederate Cemetery.
Who Is Graham Fuller? Tsarnaev Brothers had a CIA Connection. Everything We Really Know About the Marathon Bombers. Russia Wiretapped Boston Bombing Suspect, Recorded Conversation With Mother: Officials. The changing facts in the Boston investigation. Dzhokar Tsarnaev Posts Bail. Boston: Prep for the Police State? | Orwellwasright's Weblog. The Marathon Bombing: What the Media Didn’t Warn You About. Study: Majority Of Americans Not Informed Enough To Stereotype Chechens. Shocked Dzhokar Tsarnaev Always Thought Classmates Were Really Great Judges Of Character. Glenn Greenwald: How Do We Know That the Boston Bombings Were an Act of Terrorism?
Chechen Terrorists and the Neocons. Beyond the Marathon Massacre: Questions, Questions, and Questions. How Boston exposes America’s dark post-9/11 bargain. A Reading Guide to What’s Going on in Boston. Boston Bombing Suspects Echo Home-Grown Terrorists in Madrid, London Attacks.